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Life, Abundantly.

We all know that the path of life is not a straight one. Learning how to walk it with grace, peace and style may well be the ultimate art.

Recently, I found myself sitting around tables and campfires out in the wildest of West Wales at Fforest, drinking and chatting long into the nights with some seriously impressive and beautifully real women. All (mostly) making a living through our creative work, there we were throwing logs onto the flames, sharing happiness, hopes, fears, frustrations.

The thing that has brought most of us together is—I suspect—a commitment to that wild journeying, not only of creative living, but the desire to live wholeheartedly through all of life’s twists and turns and find kindred spirits along the way.

We want to make all our opportunities count, capture the day and search for the light, beauty, joy within all the heartache and mess that life inevitably has to be. Express it, soothe it, counsel it, celebrate it.

Breathe something into nothing – give birth and nurture. And most of all, chase that insatiable urge to make gorgeous stuff!

Today, July 8th, is my Ma’s birthday. She was the most lively, lovely, irresistibly creative and spontaneous soul I ever knew. But she wasn’t encouraged to be that because, well as I’m sure you may have heard, creative explosions can be so inconvenient, darling, and just not the done thing. Poor love. She died when I was twelve, setting us off alone like little boats sailing over a big sea, with my hugely practical Pa skippering us through rough waters. At times like that it is very helpful to have an engineer dad who keeps the machine running smoothly. Lovely old Pa.

The three decades since then have been an almost unbelievable voyage of discovering all and more of what she gave me, that she couldn’t help me find in person. Yet because she’s here in so much spirit it was just inevitable that some of the most insanely great encounters would fill these soft sails.

All that creative adventuring, and now it seems there are safe ports to rest in, at last. Enjoy safe harbour, find fires, seek out the sparks, and allow big lights to come on for the ‘thing back then’ and how it fits with the ‘happening over here now’, not to mention graciously acknowledging the ‘bizarre detour halfway along’. Just sitting, watching and listening, accepting, like a dawning…

Life-giving. That’s what Sisterhood has been.

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So this morning, 30-odd years later, I arrive at our studio here at The Forge for a day’s work and gorgeous Silkie catches me, a little tearful and wielding a top-heavy hydrangea stem – Ma’s birthday present. It’s a celebration of her and all the creative loving she’s passed on, a ‘thank you’, and a continuing promise to keep pursuing life, practising that ‘grace and peace’ walk, and cherish each wide open moment that shouts ‘YES!’ for our million and one ideas and inspirations.

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2 thoughts on “Life, Abundantly.”

Hey Lizzie, this post really resonated with me. Whilst I can’t pretend to be part of the official ‘Sisterhood’ (purely on the basis of gender!), I hope I can be part of the ‘hood’. I lost my Ma three years ago, but she was the one that set me off on my creative journey at a young age. Thankfully, she was lucky enough herself to pursue a degree in sculpture, then a career in teaching art, then she still drew and painted after she retired. Losing her was the impetus I needed to start my own business, after ‘meaning to do it’ for years – the classic ‘life’s too short’ adage never felt so real. She was definitely part of the sisterhood and I’m thankful to her for setting me off on my creative journey, both when I was a young lad colouring in AND in my more recent adventures. I’ll raise a glass to the sisterhood any day and making lives abundant. x

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LIZZIE • STUDIO

Lizzie is an independent Creative Director and Consultant. This site is devoted to her words. From a long-rooted love of written reflection and photography, a TEDx talk and related workshops have also evolved and now all exist together in Lizzie’s personal studio practice.